This Is Getting On My Nerves #radio #noise

I’ve been plagued with power line noise off and on since 2017. I contacted Georgia Power Company but they weren’t responsive. I had to resort to contacting the FCC. Receiving no response from the FCC, I purchased an MFJ-1026 noise canceling signal enhancer to get me by until someone called me back. The MFJ-1026 worked, but the build quality made it unreliable.

Three months later I received an email from the FCC, stating that they turn such matters over to the ARRL now. A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from the ARRL, stating that the FCC asked them to handle such issues with RFI. The ARRL instructed me to give the power company another call, and give them another chance. I guess if the first 10 calls aren’t enough, an 11th call will certainly get their attention. I called a few more times. There is usually a voicemail. You leave a message and await a return call. Finally, someone called back. It was a new person in that position. What eventually happened was the new person called in a retired RFI engineer who had retired before a suitable replacement was effectively trained.

It took several trips over the course of a year or so to get my noise level down from S9+15dB to S3. There was loose hardware, dirty insulators, and two blown lightning arrestors. By the time they had knocked the noise down to S3 I decided to leave them alone. But the S3 lasted for maybe a little more than a year.

In late 2021, the noise started slowly getting more intense during days with low humidity. It has gradually gotten worse. For the past three months the noise has been constant. I have left 8 messages with Georgia Power since late 2021. The noise has continued until it is now so intense that no noise blanker can deal with it.

I finally got someone on the phone from engineering. She said she will have someone call me. That was two weeks ago. I also filed a new complaint with the FCC about 3 weeks ago. Maybe I will hear from the ARRL in July.

The sad thing is that I bragged on Georgia Power in my videos after they took care of it the first time.

For now, I’m using the QRM Eliminator that you’ve seen featured in some past videos. There is a dedicated playlist for the QRM Eliminator. Take notice that, in this video, I have the main antenna gain set at maximum. That is not often where it needs to be set. But the noise antenna was receiving more noise than the main antenna, which is fine, thus I had to run the main antenna gain at maximum. The idea is to set the gain of both antennas to the point where both are receiving the noise at the same level. Use your S-meter as a reference. Then adjust the phase knob and fine tune the two gain knobs. Finally, recheck the phase knob to see if you can null the noise anymore. Remember too that you will need to readjust after you change to a different band, or if you make a coarse change in frequency within the same band.

NOTE: If you purchase either of the noise cancellation devices I’ve mentioned, be sure not to transmit more than 100W through it. If you have a linear amplifier, be sure to connect the QRM Eliminator between the transceiver and the amplifier.

UPDATE: Less than a week after I posted this video, someone from the power company called. He is going to seek appeal to send someone out to verify which poles and which hardware is causing the RFI. I will keep you posted.

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73, de N4HNH

[alansteiber]

I just got one of these today in the mail. It has made a world of difference on my receive. Thank you

[ghlscitel]

They changed the 10 kV powerline to underground 2 years ago here. A big improve.

[kaydenchristensen]

Once again Doug, another amazing video. Thanks for all you do for this community!

[timothypolhamus]

I have been off air for ten years from my inner-city neighborhood - back in those days, I could operate all bands with the usual noise found in the city, especially on 40 and 80 meters.


The noise now - on ALL bands is the most horrible I have encountered in 38 years of being licensed. Ear splitting, 10 to as high as 20 over square wave noise, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

A call to PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company) resulted in them sending out a guy untrained in RF detection who didn't even have any means of getting to the top of the pole to inpect it!

I made another call to PECO and now they have escalated it to "an investigation."

The noise is overwhelming and makes HF all but useless. I have monitored it as high as 300 mhz!

I ordered a Timewave ANC-4 and plan to use a 6 meter vertical for my noise antenna...it is so bad here though that I wonder if it will enough...in the meantime, ill keep calling PECO...

[PTKK]

Doug, I just listened to your recent video on the way back home from a short journey to take my father-in-law to his hemodyalisis session.

Another helpful and informative video.

I'd like to add a few notes that might assist those interested in sorting out annoying QRM coming from the grid and, recently, LED street lights.

I suffer from the aforementioned annoyances. When the sun sets, the LED QRM is all the way up to S9, on my FT-890 with NB engaged, and down a bit after pressing the ipo key.
Whenever the sun rises, the power line QRM shows all its potential to disturb my ears. If it weren't for the FT-890 NB, DX would be a pipedream under the sunlight.

Moreover, I've been trying to find the best auxiliary antenna for my QTH. The plan is to start short and grow longer until I find the sweet spot that allows me to knock down the trash with minimal side effects.

To conclude, after reading some reviews, I bought a mini whip antenna that is said to receive lots of QRM. It arrived some months ago, but I still need to put it up in the air. Will update these notes accordingly.

[dacodemonk]

I feel your pain. I've been dealing with DTE Energy here for almost a year now trying to get this resolved. Luckily, the guy I deal with seems to be super nice and super accommodating. It also helps that I've been extremely patient with them. Hopefully they continue to come out and fix things as they find them...

[thormusique]

Great video, thanks! What a bummer! Might be time to move to a more radio-amenable location.

[UABFWSS]

Back when I was a lineman, we had two old timers, pretty sure that one was a ham, that would go out on "noise" complaints. They'd toodle around with a little AM transistor radio, looking for noise peaks. Almost always it was loose or broken insulator line/wire ties, occasionally an insulator itself. Late 90's.

[JayNGO]

Here’s my experience. Called power company, really nice guy showed up and replaced a few street lights. Grounded the pole guy wires that come down into the back yard. Still a noise coming from the street light solar source. KU guy says he doesn’t know anything about the top of a street light. He said he’d contact engineer. Never heard from them. I contacted Laura smith at the FCC and she responded 6 months later CC’ing the arrl into the email. The gentleman from the arrl wanted to make sure and to teach the power company their job. I located the source 100%. Told the arrl, and the FCC. Here I am 4 years later and nothing has happened. So the FCC is a toothless lion and we’re basically just a thorn in the power company. I finally lost hope and gave up. Hope you get better support than I did/have.

[icqme]

I bought one of these a while back due to solar panel inverter noise and it works to some degree. Nothing like adding a few more knobs to diddle while playing radio.

[tlebryk]

I use an NCC2 with two receive antennas on a manual switch. Takes some fiddling to get the mostly omnidirectional noise down from S9 to around S4. Multiple receive antennas pointed in different directions might help in particular situations. I also have an MFJ but it's controls are not as flexible as the NCC2 because of different noise on different bands needs different settings!

[sandynewman]

My power company uses a detection device similar to what hams use for "fox hunting". I count myself fortunate because my power company's contact for RFI is a ham too.

[alejandrovidal]

this days i have an sporadic noise in 40m band, at night. Whit IPO and attenuator on S meter hits 8 and 9.. but only in 40m band, is frustrating. I made one qrm killer but i need to put a good noise antenna.

[BurtonChristmasLites]

This is something I really needed. I do POTA when my wife and I go RVing at GA state parks. I have had what I think is some rv inverter noise every so often on 40m at night. Could be LED lights but not sure. Either way I had toyed with getting one of these units. (QRM Eliminator) Sometimes is is s20 noise. Would this help in that regard? Thanks Robert Burton KD4YDC

[Homer]

I find going to 3927, 7200 or 14313 always settles my nerves in 8 land. My $20 MFJ1026 broken swap buy, has been flawless after I fixed the inductor on the power feed. The 1026 is still better than the ANC4+ & the Chinese Eliminator at my QTH. Good luck.

[cesareais]

You need to equal the two signals of both antennas and then use the phase button. For this sometimes it's necessary drop the main antenna a bit (or much) all depend of gain from auxiliary antenna. If you have much gain on your aux, you don't need to drop too much the gain from main antenna. The best way to do this, is looking for the minimum sound of both antennas with both variable resistors of the two antennas . Then they're in phase, with the same gain. In this point you must looking for with the phase button where the noise its canceled or most attenuated. Then you can put to maximum the gain of main antenna... Or not...if the noise increase too much and you have better noise floor rate with two antennas atenuated a bit. 73s EA4IS

[kenluning]

I have power line noise also. Even on 2 meter.
I can tell when its bad when the waterfall on my 991A on 2 meters goes blue. LOL.
It seems to not be consistent either. Almost like there could be weather related issues or someone in the hood doing something they shouldn't be doing. LOL.

[KDZHF]

Isn't there a strict timeline for when the power company has to respond to a complaint from the FCC?

[TRTelos]

Forgot to say, I connected the noise eliminator on a Alinco DX 70th and using cable link it destroyed the noise eliminator .Looking at the manual you need to cut a resistor in the DX70 for the link relay cable that cuts off transmitted rf from going through the noise eliminator

[johnratcliffe]

Can't you find where the faulty equipment is and make it have an accident?